Holiday house floated across the ocean to Magnetic Island

A very special delivery has defied all the odds to arrive safely on the shores of West Point on Magnetic Island this week.

The Renewable Home delivery is a game changer for the home building industry on Magnetic Island.

A VERY special delivery has defied all the odds to arrive safely on the shores of West Point on Magnetic Island this week.

Townsville home-relocation business, Renewable Homes has transported a beach retreat to the tropical island and offloaded the structure straight onto the beach.

The house weighed 40 tonnes and was 5.6m wide and 30m long.

Renewable Homes director Jo Veneman said the house relocation had never been attempted before and had revolutionised construction on the island.

“The house was so wide we can’t get through all the trees on the dirt so we couldn’t go by road so we had to get dumped on the beach,” she said.

“This has opened up a whole new opportunity for residents on the island.”

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Ms Veneman said due to the logistics of the move, the holiday home had to be cut into three pieces to fit on the Pacific Marine Group barge.

“Two sections (of the house) were loaded on top the same trailer and another section onto another trailer,” she said.

Ms Veneman said the mammoth operation was a nail biter and required $1 million of equipment to offload the house.

“When we pulled up we had five metres of water and we were standing there looking at each other thinking this wasn’t going to work,” she said.

“We had to use the dozer and they pushed in all the sand and built a sand ramp and we were there the whole time pushing bog mats because we were constantly bogged.”

It took three hours to offload the house on Magnetic Island with Ms Veneman saying the operation was a major success.

“We have always wanted to get quality housing to the island which has never been possible,” she said.

“Therefore having access from Pacific Marine Group agreeing to allow to use their barge we can take wide loads over there now but before we couldn’t.

“They stepped up to the challenge and (there were) a lot of unknowns to them because they have never done it before either.”

The beach retreat is expected to be restumped and rejoined on the island in the next two weeks.

Originally published as Holiday house floated across the ocean to Magnetic Island